Monday, March 30, 2015

Over the past week or so i have been working hard with my new look of Kerry's Crafty cards and Cuts! I now have a new look website and blog all in one :) so if you follow this blog please make sure you head over and sign up to recieve my new blog posts as this blog will no longer be used! I will keep it open though in case you wish to refer to any tutorials etc!

So please head over to www.kerryscraftycardsandcuts.com.au and take a peek at my new look!

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Hello! I thought I would write about this to explain the entire story to my creation! (it's a long one:)) and it is also about time i used my blog again!

Yesterday Hubby reminded me that it was just 13 days till my youngest son's 5th Birthday (YIKES!) and I had failed as a mumma to arrange a party earlier and get invites out and time had definitely snuck up on me :)

Sooooo....My youngest son has had a thing about painting plaster objects and there has been a great place (or so I've heard) opened up just near our house....so today set the task of getting a party together for him...

1) 8am Posted on Facebook in our school group the names of all the kids he wanted to invite (as of course I don't know who is who!)

2) By 10.30am this was sorted (everyone was friends)...group message sent, and at the same time message sent to the plaster place to see times they had available...

3) between 10.30am and 11.30am with a bit of back and forth we came up with a date and time that all were happy with and was available at the plaster place YIPEE!

4) Plaster place booked..invites downloaded from their website at 9pm tonight

NOW as a crafty mum I know my little one was expecting something "handmade" as has been asking all week "have you made my invites yet mum". So couldn't let the invite printed as is stay like that!

I shrunk it in word, added a dashed border and printed...

I then stuck to some blue card stock, added some enamel dots, a stamped 5 and coloured that in!

PRESTO! by 10.00pm it is complete! A little rough but i have managed to get something together for his 5th birthday..and he will be ever so excited xx

So that has been my day (while working as well :)) and it must be bed time! So if your in need of a party planner to organise a party in a day..JUST ASK ME! :)

Kerry xx

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Hi all! Just thought i'd stop by today and let you all know that there is a tutorial up on my You Tube channel if you are keen to get started in the world of editing images from the web! Once you get the hang of editing it brings a whole new level of creativity to your projects and means that you don't have to always go buy one :). This is one of my favourite things about the Studio Silhouette program! So check it out if you think its something you'd like to do!

Enjoy!

Monday, June 2, 2014

Hello fellow crafters! Two blog posts in such a short while...i seem to be on a roll :). Today I am going to show you how easy it is to create your own "flairs" or epoxy dots for Project Life, Scrapbooks and Cards. These are so simple to create to match your papers in both the designer version and studio version (although Designer version is much quicker :)). I will show you both ways as I know many may not have the designer version. Luckily for me I have a Mac and can have 2 different versions, so Designer Edition is in Version 3 and the studio one in Version 2.

Let's begin with Designer Edition...(the steps here also need to be followed if using the studio edition)

Open up your software and set the page to printer settings
Page settings > Printer Settings (this will change to the default page setting on your printer which in my case is A4 size)

Click on Registration Marks and turn them on...

Next set up your template...

Use the Ellipse symbol on left side bar to create your " circles

* Hold down your shift key, left click and scroll to create a perfect circle

* then go to Object > Scale > Specify dimensions to be 1" x 1"

You now should have a 1" circle on your mat. Go to replicate and with your circle highlighted > Fill Page (bottom option). You should then have a page looking something like this...

You can see that there is space on the left and right side, so copy and paste a circle on both sides and using replicate > Column of 3 and 4 to create more circles, you will need to space them out a bit and line them up with existing circles. At this point you can save your template for future use.

Next find where you keep your digital files that you wish to work with on your computer and open them up....make your box smaller so you can see what you are working with on both screens, something like this...

The steps from now on with only work in the Designer Edition and we will be using the Advanced section in Fill Pattern.

Grab the image you wish to work with ( I'm going to use the Becky Higgins Rain edition) click on a journal card you wish to use and drag to a circle. You should find the image automatically fills the circle. Scroll in to see what you are doing...

Go to Fill Pattern section and click on Advanced Settings

Advanced Settings:

Mirror Vertically/Horizontally:- you will notice when you click on this function it will move your image around the " corners" of your circle, so you can change it's position where you want it on the circle

Aspect Ratio :- Fixed or stretch :- in most cases you will want the image on fixed as the stretch function, does exactly what it says and stretches the look of the image

Rotate Pattern :- move the image in your circle around by either using the degrees or click on the red line and move that if you want to move to a particular degree

Scale Pattern :- make the image bigger or smaller, you will notice that when you play with this you will get lots of the same image as the software is treating it as a pattern...so movement is very small and unlikely when using this.

Pan Pattern :- you can move your image around until you get exactly what you want in your circle

Transparency: makes your image lighter so you can add other elements on top or not make the "flair" as obvious.

Have a play, and remember you can always undo if you don't like the look!

The two photos below show you the original fill and the final look after playing with the above features..

THE ORIGINAL DRAG AND FILL CIRCLES BEFORE ANY EDITING...

AFTER PLAYING WITH THE ADVANCED SETTINGS IN FILL PATTERN SECTION

(I used the scale and pan pattern features only here, as i felt that was all that was needed)

From the above photos you can see how easy it is to edit the images to make some interesting epoxy's for your projects... now just simply send to your silhouette and follow the prompts for Print and Cut. I will add some pictures of completed epoxy's in next couple of days so please come back if you want to see the final product :)

You can also play further with these images using images from the cards, tracing, filling with a new pattern and placing on a pattern or plain background...see example below..

Start a new page and cut and paste a completed flair with an element....

Trace and detach the image and pull to side. Drag a patterned paper or card into the image..in this case you can see i'm working with the heart.

Cut the image, then go back to the original page and paste into a circle...either plain or in this case i have already dragged a grid card into the circle...another epoxy dot to use to match your project!

NO DESIGNER SOFTWARE NO PROBLEMS!

(even if you have the designer issue you may like to try it this way as well as you can get different results, although it is a little more time consuming :))

Follow the above instructions right up to where it states that it will only work in designer edition...

You will then need to work one by one with each circle and each paper/journal card/ image:-

First Drag a image from your computer folder onto the grey area (this will be your working area). I'm using Becky Higgins Midnight digital kit..

Next Drag one of the circles over to the image you dragged in. I want the word perfection in the middle for this epoxy/flair so i need to resize the image so the word fits in the middle of the circle.

Bring your circle to the front of the image...

Highlight circle > right click > bring to front (at bottom of list).

Make sure your circle is all inside the image otherwise it won't work.

Go to Modify window and with the image and circle highlighted, click Crop. This will leave you with a perfect circle ready to turn into a flair...

Sometimes with some words/images this does not always work, like this one...

So place the feature (in this case it's the words) in the position you want, highlight both and crop....You will be left with something looking like this on the left..

Grab another circle and fill by cropping with the same colour as the left over background in the image that you want in the circle, then drag the main image over the coloured circle, group to get your final image to cut and print...

You can also play around with shapes, trace and crop to get similar features as the designer version, it just requires a bit more work :)

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial...

If you are looking for epoxy dots to finish off your handmade flairs, you can find them HERE in my store!

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Hi all! It has been way too long since I last posted. Hopefully I can get in a groove and post a little more often :)

Many of you were interested on my Facebook page when i showed some awesome digital stamps by one of my all time favourite brands Sweet Stamp Shop. For those who love digital stamps, you can find them HERE and HERE...(if you don't like digital don't worry i also stock the real deal in my store HERE )

Anyway this tutorial is on the digital stamp set using Digi file #1. I'm using Silhouette Studio 2 but the same rules apply in Studio 3 and you don't need the designer edition :).

As You know PDF format is not supported in the silhouette studio program, so to get it into a format I could work with I went to a free file conversion site here HERE, and changed the PDF to a JPEG file (follow the instructions on this site to get your files).

Next I opened one of the pages up in my Silhouette program like this:

As this point DO NOT alter the page in any way to keep the stamps true to the size the designer wishes to keep them at.

Next you need to select one of the stamps by going to the Trace section. This symbol and section here:

Select Trace area > Place a box around one of the Stamps > you will notice it comes up with yellow lines (in most cases these will be perfect but you may need to play with the high filter and threshold to get a clean yellow line around the outside of the image) > Click Trace and Detach (under Apply Trace method)

Your box should the disappear and you can then grab your image and move it away from the original sheet like this:

Now we have our image separate we need to create a border around the outside so once we have printed the images we can cut them. To do this go to you Trace setting again > Select trace area > draw a box around the image > Click on trace outer edge. Box will disappear and bring up a red line around the outside)

WARNING: DO NOT MOVE THE IMAGE AT ALL AS IT WILL MAKE YOUR CUT OUT OF LINE

Next go to your offset box which looks like this:

Click on the image you are working with so the dimensions box comes up, and click offset.

Your image should look something like this:

I then change my offset distance to .045 and apply to get a nice border of white around the outside. If you want more of a border then change your distance accordingly. You will need to leave a bit of a border to make sure the outside of your image remains once cut.

You need to then group your image : re highlight your image so the dimensions box highlights the image and lines > Right Click > Group

Repeat this process for all the stamps until you end up with a blank page and all your stamps have been detached. You can do the stamps all at once i.e. highlight the entire page > trace the entire page and then trace and detach. But i find not all the stamps will trace nicely the same (in this case the apple at the bottom because of the broken lines and white areas to get a good trace i had to play with trace settings and ended up tracing twice, and using my eraser to try and get the trace as close as possible to the line, (in fact it was being so annoying i ended up editing the nodes to make a nice outline) I also had a few issues with the coconut and had to play a little...) and you will need to remember to ungroup and release compound path so you can work with each one separately for offset line.

Your page should now look something like this:

Now we need to prepare the page for a print and cut:-

Firstly change your page settings to printer settings if you have not done so already

Next go to you registration marks box which looks like this, and turn your registration marks on:

Move your images around the page until they are all inside the grey area, you may need to rotate some to get them to fit (I have read you can go over the grey line but I'm yet to try this out for myself). Your page now should look something like this:-

Now we need to ungroup all the images (highlight entire page, right click, ungroup)

Go to Cut settings box (the following steps are slightly different in version 3) and click uncut first, then click cut edge, this should bring up an outline on the edge (offset line) of all your stamps

You can group all your images back as a whole or separately, depending on how you think you will use them at a later time.

You are now ready to print and Cut them.

Open up the Send to Silhouette box and follow instructions

1. Print the image (I use whatever white card i have on hand and what purpose I'm using it for i.e. If colouring in with copics I use X press it Paper, Quill card or Kaisercraft smooth for paint/pencils etc)

2. Place your image on the mat, follow the instructions(you want the machine to detect registration marks automatically) and check your settings before you cut:-

3. Hold your breath that the cutting bit works......I find that sometimes the cameo is temperamental but good light (I use mine only by day as i find sunlight is best) and leaving your cover of the cameo up helps get an accurate cut.

4. Voila! Lots of SWEEEEET stamp goodness ready to colour as you like!

NOW..I can hear many of you thinking, I have all these stamps already and don't need to buy the digi's, I have a silhouette, can i achieve the same thing? YES is the answer you can :) However that will be left for another time soon!

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial, and have fun playing and creating! I am off now to create some cards with my images!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Hi all! It's Kerry here today! It's been a while :). I have given the Design Team girls a month off with everything that is happening around here (in fact they didnt get any goodies this month, but be prepared for next month as lots will be on the way to them next week!)

So I thought I would jump on and do a post myself!. I finally got to sit down last night and make some cards using the Kaisercraft Enchanted Garden Collection. To complete the cards i used one of my kits which includes a paper pad, sticker sheet, collectables and 2 12x12 journal card sheet. The collection pieces can be found HERE in my store.

First card...Using my sticker sheet and paper pad, and a couple of butterflies from the collectables...such a simple card but I loved how it turned out! The saying Cherish- to treat with affection and tenderness; hold dear is just beautiful!

The next card I used the 6x6 sheet of glitter fairy paper and a frame from the collectables to create a picture frame on the front of the card..I cut a section of the fairy paper to match the frame and then popped it off the page with foam dots. I also cut out the petals in the flowers from the collectables and bent a fraction to make it pop of the page!

﻿

Next up the fairy,again the flowers and the fairy i trimmed from the collectables as i didnt like the white space around it :)...added some glitter to the flowers.

Believe....I just adore the butterflies in this collection!

The Glitter paper in thic collection is just so beautiful and very very glittery (in fact this paper has no cardstock showing) so its good to show it off and keep plain. The sticker dots on the left hand side are Freckled Fawn, a NEW brand that has just entered the store in the past few weeks! I am loving the dots and the wood veneers are to die for! Check them out HERE

I hope you enjoyed my ceations and it gives you a little inspiration to use the Kaisercraft Enchanted Garden collection for that special little girl in your life

Thursday, August 1, 2013

Alanna here today, taking a step back from the brand new collections and forging on with my goal to use up my old ones! I made some butterfly book ends recently with the Tigerlilly collection from Kaisercraft. The book ends themselves aren't kaisercraft, but they do have butterfly book ends as well (that I actually prefer better, but needed to use up these ones!).

I combined the pink butterfly paper from the Tigerlilly collection with pink and white paint, flowers, pearls and butterflies for the super girlie look I was wanting. I love how feminine they've turned out.

I especially love the little white butterflies sticking out of the flowers. I coated the wooden flourishes with opaque white enamel accents and glued them into place with glossy accents - hope they last!

The back piece is printed words from another Tigerlilly paper - just something plain for the back as they won't really be seen. A nice little "secret" bit of inspiration :)